A Guide to Managing a Volunteer Workforce

While money matters a lot in American politics, anyone who has been part of a large campaign knows that a strong, committed group of volunteers can be every bit as critical to success. Time and again, an effective ground game that captures the public’s spirit — and its sweat equity — is cited as the reason for a candidate’s breakthrough.

In our experience leading and studying large-scale change efforts of many kinds, from social movements to electoral races, we have come to believe that mismanaging volunteers is one of the most common sources of failure. Research shows that seven out of 10 people who volunteer never come back, severely undermining the energy and continuity a strong effort requires. By contrast, the rare campaign that thoughtfully structures the volunteer experience can build sustained, collective action and generate enormous creativity. In some cases, the result is a volunteer base so capable that it can be reused in perpetuity. The Freedom to Marry campaign, for instance, which helped win the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in 2015, has now become Freedom for All Americans, mobilizing to end all discrimination against gay and transgender citizens.

What does a successful campaign like this one understand that others don’t? Which habits set it apart? Here are six lessons that should be useful to anyone who is interested in engaging volunteers, as pertinent in the corporate boardroom as on the campaign trail.

Make their dreams come true. The belief that you need to convince, cajole, or manipulate people into joining your cause is wrong. People who volunteer generally don’t do it because you’ve worn them down with messaging. Once someone has expressed interest in volunteering, strive to learn what their dreams are in order to help make them come true. A campaign that can feed people’s deep values and passions can generate stronger commitment than those that cannot — but doing so requires listening hard to volunteers. One tactic that has been used in community and labor organizing for decades is the deliberate “one-to-one,” a personal conversation that surfaces values and beliefs.

Create fellowship. Campaigns often ask volunteers to do things alone. It’s perceived as easier, more efficient, and a better use of sometimes-sparse time and resources. But people in isolation do not have the kind of meaningful, transformative experiences that lead to long-term engagement. Those kinds of experiences have to happen alongside other people, making volunteers feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.

While it’s true that many people join a cause because it aligns with their beliefs, others do it simply because it connects them to other people. In his study of activists protesting outside abortion clinics across the country, sociologist Ziad Munson found that 47% were either in favor of abortion rights or indifferent to issues of abortion when they first got involved; they joined the movement not because they cared about the issue, but because they found fellowship. Through that fellowship, they became transformed, not only in what they believed about the issue but also in what they believed they could do.

Build easy on-ramps. It’s one thing to have passion for an idea or the desire to join a community. It’s another to act on it effectively. People need concrete ways to get started on developing their confidence and their skills.

For the 100,000 Lives Campaign, an effort to reduce infections and injuries to patients in U.S. hospitals, which one of us (Joe) ran, the team at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement offered six simple actions that organizations and clinicians could take together to get under way — for instance, a bundle of actions doctors and nurses could do to reduce cases of pneumonia in intensive care units. These easy starting points gave participants an immediate sense of accomplishment from working together.

As a campaign progresses, however, keep in mind that competence and autonomy are two building blocks of personal power. Successful campaigns give volunteers both as they progress through their experience, providing early-stage volunteers with the training and support they need to succeed and giving more mature volunteers lots of room to run.

Get rhythm. Good campaigns, like a stirring song or well-paced novel, pay deliberate attention to how they unfold. They ratchet up and release tension, creating rhythms that help them grow and sustain volunteer excitement. Though they have a big goal they want to achieve, they introduce peaks and plateaus on the way to it.

Peaks are short-term actions that move a campaign closer to its big goal — a massive protest or a targeted boycott, for example. Plateaus are the times when volunteers can celebrate, rest, and reflect on what will come next. For instance, after the Obama campaign had secured the Democratic nomination in 2008, it called all of its field leaders back to Chicago for a monthlong session in June. They used the time to celebrate, learn from failures and successes in the primaries, and rest before mapping their field plan for the general election.

Chunk the data. Sometimes a big aim, such as electing a candidate or solving a big social problem, can feel remote. Volunteers need to have personal benchmarks to measure their own progress and know if their work makes a difference. By chunking data so volunteers can track their local contribution to the bigger goal, successful campaigns increase engagement.

For the 100,000 Homes Campaign, a national effort that supported communities in housing 100,000 chronically homeless Americans, every participating community was responsible for housing 2.5% of its chronically homeless every month in service of the larger effort. Electoral campaigns do the same for each field team, giving them clear goals about numbers of doors to knock on or voters to identify within their geographic turf.

Observe the John Cusack rule. When Inside the Actor’s Studio interviewed actor John Cusack about his work as a producer, he said that he felt his primary job was to “keep the set free of fear.” It’s a powerful philosophy for any group, and it’s critical in lengthy campaigns. People experience enough fear and criticism in their everyday lives; the campaign has to be the place where they come for fun, joy, and affirmation. Violating that rule can undermine the group’s energy and badly limit creativity.

A common misstep in this respect is what we call data malpractice: using data to inspect or embarrass volunteers (e.g., publicly ranking their individual performance) instead of using it to create a culture of learning. Effective campaigns do use data — to highlight what works, ask constructive questions about what didn’t, and then move on.

Tending to these six ideas actively can create a high-functioning volunteer group that finds meaning, has a good time, and accomplishes big things. When that happens, the group can form a durable identity that will persist for months and years to come. And that’s how large-scale change really occurs.

Joe McCannon is co-founder and CEO of the Billions Institute. Before this he was an appointee in the Obama Administration, serving as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Director of Learning and Diffusion at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. He also served as Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.